Charter school research finds wide disparity among states

May 20, 2005

KALAMAZOO--A just-released comparison of charter schools in
six states reveals a wide disparity in how well the schools are
functioning, and Michigan charter schools fared especially poorly
overall, Western Michigan University researchers have found.

The findings are summarized in a paper presented at the American
Educational Research Association's annual meeting April 11-15
in Montreal, Canada. The paper was written by Dr. Gary Miron,
chief of staff of the WMU Evaluation Center. The six states hired
the center to examine how their charter schools are performing.
Three recently released studies examined charter schools in Ohio,
Connecticut and Delaware. Earlier studies were conducted on charter
schools in Michigan, Illinois and Pennsylvania.

The comparison shows that charter schools in Michigan and
Ohio are performing poorly overall, while schools in Connecticut
and Delaware consistently outperform traditional public schools.
Results for Illinois and Pennsylvania were mixed, with Pennsylvania
charter schools showing a very small advantage over traditional
public schools.

From this comparison, Miron concludes that a significant contributor
to the success or failure of each state's charter school initiatives
stems from the laws passed that allow them and the political
environment in which those laws were created. The paper, titled
"Strong Charter School Laws are Those That Result in Positive
Outcomes," contends that charter school laws should be judged
by their positive outcomes rather than by the amount of autonomy
they grant.

Both Michigan and Ohio, spurred by a heated political atmosphere,
jumped headlong into their charter school initiatives. Connecticut
and Delaware have been much more deliberate in their entry into
the charter school realm.

"That's a big lesson for both Michigan and Ohio,"
Miron says. "Ohio started later, but they scaled up their
reform very rapidly and now they've had to impose a moratorium
for a bit. When you rush into a reform the way Michigan did,
there isn't time for charter school authorizers to get the tools
or the mechanisms in place to do effective oversight "

Recently released Evaluation Center studies of charter school
movements in Delaware and Connecticut paint a different picture.
Delaware officials eased into the movement, saw there were some
problems and imposed a moratorium until better safeguards were
put in place. The moratorium was then lifted, and Delaware now
has 13 charter schools. By contrast, the number of charter schools
in Michigan exploded in the late 1990s until a cap of 150 university-authorized
charter schools was reached in 1999.

Connecticut also stepped more carefully into its charter school
initiative by providing better oversight, Miron says. The state
currently has 14 charters, and in cases where low-functioning
schools arose, Connecticut officials have either forced or persuaded
those schools to close.

"In Connecticut, they have clear expectations and a willingness
to act when those expectations are not met," Miron says.

Both Delaware and Connecticut have been highly selective in
approving charter applications, which is one of the best ways
to ensure strong charter schools, Miron says.

Lack of accountability also was a problem both in Michigan
and Ohio. Performance data and other pertinent information sometimes
were not available because large numbers of schools do not submit
this information as required by law in their annual reports,
says Dr. Carolyn Sullins, Evaluation Center senior research associate
and the lead author of the center's recently released study on
four charter schools in the Cleveland area. Still other schools
do not submit annual reports at all because the Ohio State Board
of Education lacks the personnel to review them.

The situation is similar in Michigan, Miron says.

Michigan and Ohio also differ from the other states in their
heavy reliance on EMOs--education management organizations. Evaluation
Center studies suggest that states with extensive involvement
by for-profit management companies have poorer results in terms
of performance and accountability. In Michigan, more than 75
percent of its charters are operated by EMOs.

"The EMO can come in and have a cookie-cutter approach--a
tried-and-tested model for the school--and implement that,"
Miron says. "At the same time, a lot of the resources that
could be going into instruction are being shaved off and put
into the pockets of the EMOs."

Delaware has had EMOs operate its charter schools, but with
the rigorous oversight the state has imposed, management companies
are fired if they do not meet expectations, Miron says. That's
virtually unheard of in Michigan.

"There's nothing wrong with private entrepreneurship
in public education, but they need to be reined in by the public
school boards," Miron says. "The way contracts are
set up in Michigan, that often is not the case."

Charter school initiatives in Michigan and Ohio also were
characterized by a highly charged political atmosphere in which
the majority party pushed through charter school legislation
resulting in a rash of legal challenges. Movements in Delaware
and Connecticut were decidedly bipartisan.

Miron says Michigan and Ohio could learn from states like
Delaware and Connecticut.

"Michigan needs to close poor performing schools,"
Miron says. "And by doing that, they would make room for
new schools to open. We don't need to lift the cap. We need more
charter schools, but we do that by closing poor performing ones."

Miron's paper concludes that Michigan's charter school law,
though thought to be a strong law because it grants a high degree
of autonomy to charter schools, is just the opposite.

"Michigan, in my eyes, clearly has a weak law because
the schools are not performing well in terms of general academic
performance, nor in terms of accountability," Miron says.

Copies of Miron's paper and the three new studies are available
through the center's Web site at <www.wmich.edu/evalctr>.
For interviews, contact Dr. Gary Miron at (269) 387-5895 or <gary.miron@wmich.edu>.